Лорел Гамильтон - The Harlequin

I checked to make sure the gun was still loaded, because any time a gun has been out of your sight, you damn well better check. Never trust anyone else that a gun is either loaded or unloaded; check it yourself. Gun safety 101.

Towel tucked tight under my arms, and gun in hand, I opened the door. I thought for a moment the bedroom was empty, but then Clay and Graham stood up near the fireplace. They'd been sitting in the room's only chairs.

«Clay, shouldn't you be in bed somewhere? You just got off work at Guilty Pleasures.» I looked at the bed and found it stripped down to the slightly singed mattress. My gun had been there somewhere.

As if he read my mind, Clay said, «Your gun is in the bedside table.»

I didn't check to make sure he was telling the truth. One, I trusted Clay; two, I had a gun in one hand and the other hand helped hold the towel in place. I was armed and out of hands. «Thanks, but why aren't you in bed?»

«After they found the bugs in all the businesses, Jean-Claude asked us to do double shifts.» He ran his hand through his short blond curls. Early twenties looked better on no sleep, but he still looked tired.

«Don't I even get a hello?» Graham asked. I looked at him and couldn't fight a frown. He was about the same size as Clay: six feet tall, but his shoulders were much broader. Graham was muscled in a way that only serious weight lifting would give you. His black hair was so long on top that his dark eyes peered out from the hair. The bottom of his hair was freshly shaved, very short, so that it looked like two different haircuts put together. He wasn't wearing the black T-shirt that was standard bodyguard wear. He was wearing red. The red shirt was a new addition to the bodyguard uniform. Most of them were still in black, some with the appropriate club name and «Security» written on them, or just plain black. Red meant the guard was okay with being emergency food for the ardeur . It had been Remus's idea originally. He'd come up with it after I'd nearly killed Damian, Nathaniel, and myself from not feeding the ardeur enough. I thought the red shirt idea was a joke until the first guard showed up wearing one.

Strangely, since the red shirt policy went into effect, I'd gained a much better control over the ardeur . Let's hear it for fear, embarrassment, and sheer stubbornness. Graham had been trying to get into my pants for months, so no big surprise that he volunteered. What creeped me out was some of the other guards who'd done it. Men I hadn't known thought of me in a sexual way. I mean, it's one thing to suspect a man lusts after you, but absolute confirmation, well, that made me uncomfortable.

«Hey, Graham, nice shirt,» I said, and I was happy that it sounded hostile.

«Why are you mad at me? It's not my rule. Be mad at Remus, or Claudia, or Jean-Claude. It's their rule that you are not to be alone in a room unless accompanied by a man willing to feed the ardeur .»

«Since when?» I asked.

«Since this mysterious bad guy came to town. No one's giving details, but apparently the people who give us orders are worried that the bad guys will use magic to make the ardeur go out of control. So you have to have food at all times.» He didn't sound happy about it. Maybe my being pissy was finally rubbing off on Graham. Good.

«We're short of red shirts today, Anita,» Clay said.

«Why?»

«Because the guard is doubled around all of Jean-Claude's businesses. He's having to renegotiate with Rafael and Narcissus for more people.»

«I guess we pay more money, we get more men,» I said.

The two men exchanged a look. «Maybe,» Clay said.

I was getting cold standing there in nothing but a towel, so I went to the armoire for clothes. «What else could they be negotiating for except money?» I said. I stared at the double door of the armoire, because the towel was slipping, and I had a gun in the other hand. I'd never been good at getting a towel to stay fastened. It wasn't like both of the men hadn't seen me naked. But… damn it.

«Power,» Clay said. «Everyone wants a closer tie to Jean-Claude now that he's his own vampire bloodline. And Narcissus is seriously freaked that Asher's new animal to call is hyena.»

«Freaked how?» I asked. I tucked the arm with the gun tight on the towel and tugged on the door of the armoire. It stuck.

«We're wolves, not hyenas, so this is all secondhand,» Clay said. «Narcissus wants guarantees that Asher won't try to run his clan.»

I finally got the door opened; yea for me. «Asher isn't powerful enough to do that.»

«Maybe,» Clay said, «but Narcissus is worried about it. He wants to negotiate now before it's an issue.»

I had black jeans in hand, but I really needed the second hand to get the other clothes.

«Oh, for God's sake,» Graham said. He stalked toward me. He was angry enough that as he got closer I got little bits of it, like embers from a fire hitting my skin. He grabbed the edge of the jeans in my hand. I held on. We glared at each other. «I'll just hold the clothes for you, Anita. That's it, okay?»

It was a reasonable idea. It was helpful. So why didn't I want to do it? Because Graham seriously bugged me. His persistent pursuit of sex with me, with no pretense of emotion, let alone love, really hit my buttons wrong. Of course, if he'd lied about me being the love of his life, that would have pissed me off more. God. I let go of the jeans. I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and said, «Thank you.»

Graham blinked down at me as if I'd never said thank you to him before. Maybe I hadn't. Shame on me then. He put his life on the line to keep me safe. So he was a lech; at least he was an honest lech.

I looked up at him. This close I could see the slight uptilt of his brown eyes. His mother was Japanese, which got him the hair and eyes. The rest of him looked like his blond and blue-eyed father had cloned himself. Meeting his parents by accident one night hadn't made me like him better. In fact it had made it worse. His parents seemed like good people. Would they be ashamed to know how much of a horndog their only child was? It seemed likely.

I shook my head and turned back to the armoire. I'd concentrate on getting dressed. That would help me feel better. I always felt better with clothes on. Grandma Blake's influence. There was a woman who thought naked meant bad.

I was getting low on shirts here. My choices were black or red. Black made me look like one of the bodyguards, and red, well, red looked like all the red shirts were my people, like a special Anita Blake uniform. I picked up one of the black shirts, put it back, picked up a red shirt, put it back.

«Anita, just pick a shirt,» Graham said.

«I hadn't realized until this moment that my normal off-duty clothes are the same as the uniform for you guys.»

«Why is that a problem?» he asked.

«I don't know,» I said, and that was the truth.

«Then pick red. I promise that just because we're dressed like we match, it's not a date, okay?» He finally sounded angry.

I sighed. «I'm sorry that it bugs me that the red shirts mean that people want to fuck me. It does bug me. It really does.»

«The color of my shirt didn't change anything about how I interact with you,» Graham said. «I've been honest from the beginning about what I'd like to do.»

I nodded. «You know, Graham, I was just thinking that. You've been honest. I say I like honest, but I guess I don't like honest past a certain point.» I grabbed the red shirt. I needed to grow up about this issue and buy some different-colored clothes. I added jogging socks and black jogging shoes to the pile in Graham's arms. I did the mental list and finally realized I didn't have any underwear in the pile. I opened the bottom drawer in the armoire. Strangely, there was plenty of lingerie. Jean-Claude had gotten me to the point where I didn't own any simple underwear. Everything had lace, or fishnet, or something on it. I had learned to buy two to three pairs of the panties to one matching bra. You could wear bras longer than underwear.